Cat and mouse game to beat deadly threat

A team of 800 US and British experts are now working on more sophisticated electronic counter measures to try to deal with the threat posed by the increasingly deadly roadside bomb. The deaths of the two British soldiers has refocused attention on the protection afforded to British troops by their vehicles.

Soldiers in Basra have reinforced their Land Rovers and trucks by bolting extra armoured plates on the sides and fronts of the vehicles in a makeshift attempt to confront the threat posed by increasingly powerful roadside bombs. They have also designed basic electronic counter measures to try to detect and deflect the infra-red detectors which trigger the bombs.

The bombs are "not difficult to make", Lieutenant Colonel Martin Pope, deputy commander of the coalition's improvised explosive device (IED) task force in Baghdad said. The remote-controlled bombs consist of a projectile made of copper packed into what he called a "dish of metal". They have a velocity of 2,000 metres a second, he said. Only the armour on a battle tank could stop them. They are sometimes disguised by "plastic grass".

"It is very much a long-term task," Lt Col Pope said of the attempts to counter the bombs. It had taken the army a long time to work out how to counter them in Northern Ireland. "It is a cat and mouse game," he said. Insurgents "observe your behaviour [and] always have the initiative".

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said the security of all the vehicles was kept under "constant review. It is a decision for the commander on the ground what vehicles they use and they are content with what they have."

Amyas Godfrey, head of the UK armed forces programme at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, said the increased accuracy of the bombs presented the British forces with a constant challenge. "Upgrading equipment is a continuous process," he said.

Troops also have to consider the manoeuvrability and visibility of a vehicle.